


The Road Not Taken

by HolleringHawk65



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Krauser-centric, M/M, and I wanted to contribute to the side of the fandom that likes Krauser again finally lol, this could be multi-chaptered if people like it, this is a study in pronouns and stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-06-22 06:13:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19661488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HolleringHawk65/pseuds/HolleringHawk65
Summary: A series of snapshots from Krauser's life, from after Operation: Javier to after RE4.





	The Road Not Taken

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so please please comment on this, like pretty please with a cherry on top, I've worked three days on this and it feels like it's been an eternity since I started writing this.

“Are you the same Ada that knew Leon?” He isn’t sure if he wants the answer to his question. He remembers Leon curled up against him, coaxing him to talk about what had happened in Raccoon City after a night terror.

She quirks an eyebrow up at him. “Yeah, I knew Leon. Not as well as you did , though.” She pats him on the shoulder before sauntering off.

He wants to hate her then, hate her forever without forgiveness. How could someone ever leave Leon? He would have stayed and protected him for forever, if his ruined arm hadn’t made him such a liability. But he has to work with her because Wesker told him too, and he figures that Leon would forgive her, somehow. Probably because of the rocket launcher.

* * *

He has a chance to get away from the Organization’s craziness for the weekend. He knows exactly where Leon is, because Leon has not been deployed on any missions recently because of an undisclosed injury. He has read intel that says that the American government won’t let Leon train for the secret service until its healed, so he imagines that it must be not only noticeable, but horrible.

Leon is boring. He goes to the store or to the gym and then he goes home. Leon does not have a pet nor a girlfriend nor a boyfriend. He could easily intercept Leon’s daily routine and see him. 

He considers showing up at Leon’s door and kissing him like a man in the desert drinks water.

But he decides that he would rather not be the reason that Leon fails a psychological evaluation.

* * *

Krauser knows that there was a small, wooden, box in Leon’s top drawer, all the way to the left and in the back. There was at least one picture of the two of them in it and he likes to imagine that his abandoned dog tags now reside in it as well; he did not have any next-of-kin and had listed Leon as his emergency contact.

* * *

“You’re thinking about him again, aren’t you?” The question is asked without malice, but he lowers his coffee mug all the same. Wesker has just walked out of the shower, only a towel snugly hanging around his cream-colored hips.

The truth--or, at the very least, the easiest thing to say--would be that he is always thinking about Leon. His thoughts are composed of the Organization (including Wesker and Ada) and Leon. He is aware that if his thoughts were organized in percentages on a pie chart, a disturbing amount would be about Leon.

The truth is, perhaps, what Wesker wants to hear. Wesker, who is unable to be with the object of his affection-cum-obsession, would probably enjoy a perverse pleasure in hearing that he thinks of Leon as much as possible. On the other hand, Wesker, his boss, probably does not want to hear that he is not thinking of their Mission during every moment that he takes a breath.

“You and I just rutted against each other like we were teenagers,” he begins, having decided for as much of a diplomatic position as possible, “I don’t need to be thinking of anyone else.” It is not a complete lie and he hopes that Wesker’s super human senses does not pick up on it as being one.

Wesker just gives a one-sided smile before he walks over to where he is sitting, standing over him. Slowly, Wesker’s right hand cards through his hair while his other hand gently—deceptively so—tilts his head up. He leans down and kisses him on the lips. Unlike the night before, where Wesker had been more than happy to throw him around and do whatever he saw fit to him, this morning has been all about slow and languid movements. If he had never heard the name “Leon Kennedy” they would probably be emotionally fulfilling.

Wesker straightens up. “Don’t forget the reason they tossed you away, Krauser. The only reason you should think about Kennedy is when you finally get to put a bullet in between his eyes.”

As Wesker makes himself something to drink, he wonders if that’s how Wesker thinks about Chris. With a touch of concern, he hopes not, considering the amount of times Wesker has muttered his apparent arch-nemesis’s name in the heat of the moment with him.

* * *

“The past, the present, and the future all walk into a bar. It was Tense.”

Where Leon is optimistic, Luis is pessimistic. Where Leon is all about getting into the action, Luis is all about being behind the scenes. He muses that it must lead the virologist to feel safe to avoid conflict, whereas Leon never seemed to feel safe in any situation.

He has realized, however, that Leon and Luis do have something in common: their terrible sense of humor. (He knows that they would both argue that they have a great sense of humor.)

“I know that my grasp of the English language is not perfect, but I thought that was a pretty good one,” Luis admits after he has finished chuckling to himself.

“It wasn’t bad,” he tells him, because Luis seems to like him and they treat each other well enough. He even smiles when he realizes that Luis is looking at him, at which a flush seems to appear on the brunet’s cheeks.

* * *

“Who are they?”

He looks up to see that Luis has walked in--though it’s really more like he had burst into the room, like some kind of intellectual twister. “Why are you in my room?”

“This is a question that I have been wondering for days while on my smoke breaks. At first, I thought that you and the,” he gestures with his hand, “the woman were together. But now I know that you two don’t seem to get along that well, it’s a very…” Luis drifts off at that, letting him fill in the blank there. _Complicated_ wouldn’t begin to describe his relationship with Ada.

“I still don’t understand why you’re here.”

Luis gestures again. “The reason you won’t just kiss me, Jack, who is it?”

He blinks. What should he say? Luis is not Wesker--he does not _need_ to hide Leon away from him. On the other hand, Luis could be trying to gather information against him to report back to Saddler. Then, he realizes the obvious response: “You want to kiss me?”

Luis sighs, dramatically, before he plops down on his bed as the other watches him, curious. “Well, yes.”

He does not tell Luis about Leon that night; not among kissing each other like they’re going to die tomorrow, not when he has two fingers in Luis, not when his teeth are pressing into a tan neck, and certainly not when Luis is on his lap, seated on his cock, long fingers wrapped in his blond hair.

* * *

He rubs his face, his left arm tinging at the fact that this conversation is taking place. Being civil with _the bitch in the red dress_.“Ada, what are you talking about?”

She is pacing like a tigress in a cage. “I am here because Luis sent an email months ago begging for help. He’s _afraid_ , Krauser. He is brilliant and he is afraid. What do you think I’m talking about? We have to help him.”

Something that she’s saying makes him shift, uneasy. He is suddenly concerned that maybe Luis never wanted to kiss _him_ , specifically, but that he wanted some kind of safety--escape--from him.

“Does Wesker agree with that?” Bringing their superior into this is safe territory, though Ada frowns at his name.

“Sera is a valuable scientist, surely even you can see that. If we can get Sera out of here, he’ll be loyal to _us_. Don’t you think Wesker would want that?”

He had been wondering if Wesker had sent him here as some kind of test. Was it to see if he would get Luis to defect? Or was he testing his own loyalty? Like always, his mind goes straight to Leon--he would help Luis, without a doubt, even ( _especially?_ ) if it meant working with Ada.

“What do you think we need to do to save him?”

Ada’s expression makes him think that she either knew that he was going to agree to help Luis or she would have gotten what she needed from him regardless.

“Your blood,” she tells him. “because of what Wesker used to on you to heal your arm. If Luis can reverse engineer what he gave to you, then he can inject himself with it and give himself a decent healing factor, just in case something goes wrong before we can get him out.”

Luis has been in his bed with him for the past week. He now knows what it’s like for the Spaniard to fall asleep in his arms, or laying next to him; always within an arm’s length, and usually completely sated from sex. He wants more of that, and the corny puns, and the nights where one of them can’t fall asleep and the other stays up to comfort them, and everything else that could come with being a couple.

* * *

Saddler was getting suspicious of how much time the two of them were spending together, which was making it that much harder for him to get into the cult leader’s inner circle. He’s hoping that kidnapping POTUS’s daughter will finally change that.

“I think this is the right one,” Luis tells him. He’s already straddling his lap, but the words take away from the moment. “I already did preliminary testing, but I need you to do something for me.”

He’s thinking that he’s going to like this about as much one would like walking on a bed of hot coals, and he’s proven right.

“I need you to cut me somewhere.” Luis is looking right at his face and must see his grimace because he explains, “to check the healing factor. The whole point of injecting myself with Progenitor, no?”

“Why do you want me to do it?” He knows that Ada can’t do it--she isn’t around Luis regularly, and they need to know if this is working _now_. Why can’t Luis do it _himself_?

“Your hand is steadier than mine, less likely to hit something critical, or go deep enough to cause permanent damage.”

Luis does not know the full details of his past or the reason why he has Progenitor coursing through his veins to begin with. He tries to shake off the idea of hurting Luis permanently. The other has already reached over for the knife that he had taken off for the night already and has extended the hilt towards him.

He has Luis stand up and take off his pants. The knife feels like dead weight as he looks at the bare legs, but he knows he couldn’t bear to live with himself if Luis lost the use of one of his hands. “Stay still.”

It’s a pointless command, because he can’t imagine Luis bolting on him, but he breathes out an affirmative anyway.

He presses the tip into Luis’s thigh. He hates that the sharpness of the blade means that it goes in easily, like cutting into a freshly baked cake. Luis gasps, his hands balling up into fists.

He pulls it out. The wound isn’t even that big, or deep, but he can’t stand hurting Luis anymore.

Luis looks down at it, his fingers touching it slowly, coming away with his ruby red blood. “It feels different.”

He’s still kneeling on the floor, looking at the wound. Wants to will it away. Doesn’t know what to say in response to what Luis has said, isn’t sure how to help him in this situation--he hasn’t gotten seriously hurt since Wesker gave him Progenitor.

They both watch as the blood stops. He grabs a towel and wipes away the blood that is trickling down Luis’s leg.

Nothing, not even a mark.

Luis lets out a low whistle. “Would you look at that? Our bootleg Progenitor worked.”

* * *

He wants to rail against Wesker and yell at him and ask him why he forced him into a situation that would involve direct interaction with _him_. The reason that he lost his career, lost what really made his entire life…

But if it hadn’t been for Leon, he would have never met Luis. But Luis wouldn’t want him to do this, not when they were trying to get out, but he couldn’t take Luis with him and run away. Nonetheless, that would be too obvious, and Wesker would have Ada on them in a second. No, their escape would have to be much more discreet…

* * *

Ada had been able to reach him and say that Saddler had put his scorpion’s tail through Luis’s chest. He expected to hear from Luis shortly thereafter, but there had been nothing, which had made him increasingly anxious.

Now, he was kneeling over Luis. He wasn’t letting himself say _Luis’s body_ in his mind, because he couldn’t be, not with Progenitor. He had decided that he would just wait for Luis to come back and then they would go from there.

The clicking of heels alerted him to Ada’s approach before anything else. “Here I was, thinking you wouldn’t show.”

“He wouldn’t have been helping Leon if it weren’t for you.” His words came out with an increasing amount of snarl and gravel. “You put it into his head that Leon is someone worth practically dying for.”

She raises an eyebrow. “You don’t think he is?”

Something in him softened at that. “Leon wouldn’t want anyone to die for him, you know that. This will haunt him.”

Before Ada can respond, Luis sits up with a gasp, clutching at his chest. “Oh, I didn’t like that. I will never be doing that again.”

“You won’t have to,” Ada tells them. “We’re going to get the two out of this organization.” He feels like she is not telling them an important detail in this as she outlines her plan--she’ll hide Luis why he goes around still doing Saddler’s dirty work. Her plan is hinging on Leon getting through, well, everything, but then again, this is Leon, who survived Raccoon City with little help.

* * *

Ada is holding a TMP in her hands. Dominant strain or not, the plaga hurts like a bitch. He wants his arm back, desperately. He wonders what would happen if he cut off his arm right now. Would Progenitor grow it back? Or would he be an amputee, worse off than when Wesker had first come to him?

“You remember the plan, right?” Ada is asking him--he feels like it might not be the first time--but his arm is throbbing in time with his heart. He tries to will it back to be normal, but it doesn’t work.

He croaks out her name as he looks at this thing that has caused him so much anguish over the years. “You need to shoot me, in the spine.”

“Unfortunately, that is _not_ the plan,” she tells him. “Luis is waiting for you in the getaway chopper. If our luck holds, the U.S. will just think it’s Saddler trying to get away. Remember, you can’t reach out to Leon until after Wesker is dead, you’ll be putting him in too much danger.”

“ _The spine_ ” he repeats, as his arm lurches, towards Ada. What was going on with the plaga? “Progenitor will heal it.”

She’s frowning, looking from it to him. “I don’t think…”

“Ada, I don’t think that I can control this anymore. Something’s going wrong. _Please, Ada_.”

“You better hope you’re right. I don’t want an angry virologist on my hand.”

* * *

He checks the relevant chat boards on the deep web every morning, before Luis wakes up. They both have jobs at the local high school--Luis is a biology teacher, he’s a P.E. teacher. Luis enthusiastically helps with the Spanish club while he’s trying to figure out which sport works out the best for him to coach.

He knows that one day Wesker will die. If he’s still alive, maybe he’ll work up the courage to reach out to Leon and ask for forgiveness.

* * *

Luis comes up behind him, placing his chin on his shoulder, his hands sliding so that his fingers tangle in his happy trail. “G’morning.” He tilts his head and places a kiss to his jaw. “One morning, I will wake up to you beside me.”

He’s already logged out of his computer and is just sitting at his desk. Luis doesn’t need to know how much he obsesses over Wesker. He knows that he doesn’t even _need_ to; they keep a low enough profile that he’ll never look for them. And he doesn’t even know if he and Leon could ever have any kind of future with each other in it. But he knows that his alias makes him Luis’s husband, which isn’t even a hard role to fulfill.


End file.
